Government shutdown poll: GOP disapproval high

A new survey shows that Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of the Republican Party’s handling of the government shutdown, with a majority of Americans surveyed voicing their “strong” disapproval.

The Washington-Post/ABC poll, out Monday, found that 70 percent of Americans believe the Republican Party is doing a poor job handling federal budget negotiations, up from 63 percent just before the government shutdown began. Of those sampled, 51 percent disapprove “strongly” of Republicans in Congress.

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Congressional Democrats have also suffered according to the poll, although less so than Congressional Republicans. Before the shutdown, 56 percent of Americans disapproved of Democrats’ handling of the budget negotiation; their disapproval rating has moved up to 61 percent since the shutdown began.

President Obama’s approval rating received a slight bump according to the poll, from 41 percent approving of his handling of the negotiations last week to 45 percent in the new poll.

The survey of 1,005 adults was conducted October 2-6 and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.5 percentage points.